To find out, we spoke to payload specialist and space station
engineer Ravi Margasahayam and crunched some numbers.

In 2008, NASA
signed contracts with SpaceX and its rival aerospace company
Orbital Sciences, to the tune of $1.6 billion for 12 launches and
$1.9 billion for eight rocket launches, respectively.

While these new missions cost hundreds of millions of taxpayer
dollars less than a space shuttle launch, the price of sending
cargo into space didn't go down.

"My cost per pound went up with these rockets," Margasahayam told
Tech Insider. "On the shuttle, it would be much less."
(Margasahayam spoke to Tech Insider as a private citizen and
engineer, rather than as a representative of NASA.)

Margasahayam points out that, while the space shuttles were more
expensive - a whopping $500 million per launch (or
possibly $1.5 billion, according to one analysis we've seen)
- each mission carried about 50,000 lbs. (plus seven
astronauts!). That means each pound of cargo used to cost about
$10,000 to ship on a shuttle.

Orbital Science's Cygnus spacecraft costs about $43,180
per pound to send things up, dividing the $1.9 billion
contract by the
maximum 20 metric tons of cargo the company is supposed to
supply.

For SpaceX - the cheapest of NASA's new carriers - dividing the
cost of each launch ($133 million) by the cargo weight of its
most recent resupply mission (5,000 lbs.) gives you about
$27,000 per pound.

But that's a high estimate. SpaceX told Tech Insider that its
Dragon cargo spacecraft launched on a Falcon 9 rocket can carry
up to 7,300 lbs. - and that you could bring just as much cargo
back to Earth, too (something Cygnus can't do). So if a Dragon is
full of supplies at launch and on landing, the cost dips to
$9,100 per pound.

So what does it actually cost to send things into space today?
We've estimated the shipping costs of a few experiments, care
packages, and necessities of life that have made it to the space
station below.

Bottle of water: $9,100 to $43,180

Shutterstock

Water is necessary for life - but crazy expensive in space. A
16-ounce bottle of water weighs about a pound, so it's a good
baseline for how much stuff costs to send to the space station:
between $9,100 to $43,180.

NASA decided long ago that it was silly to send new water up
there all the time, especially since there's so much of it in the
human body. So astronauts on board the ISS now drink some water
recycled from their
condensation, sweat, and urine.

70 mice: at least $29,860

But, of course, you can't send a single mouse up there, she'll
get lonely. Add in 69 friends and you'll looking at a travel bill
of about $29,860 to $141,690.

Of course, we're kidding. The mice are definitely not up there to
keep each other company. They're there for research. They're
there to study the biological effects of space, including
muscle atrophy. And that has important implications for
medicine down here on Earth, including learning more about
disease and aging.

Set of bagpipes: as much as $259,000

The weight of the bagpipes is can be highly variable depending on
materials and design. As far as we can tell, it seems that
astronaut Kjell Lindgren, shown here, is a pretty serious piper,
and strong enough to support a full-sized set of bagpipes.

Let's say he was weight-conscious and went with a relatively
light set-up - so 6 pounds, or 2 pounds less than your average
8-pound bagpipe.

That's in the ballpark of $54,600 to $259,000, but it means a lot
to astronauts who are far from home and miss life on Earth. Also,
the YouTube
video of Lindgren playing in space is so worth it.

Espresso machine: possibly more than $1.9 million

NASA

Once upon a time, astronauts were relegated to freeze-dried
coffee, which they rehydrated at far-less-than-boiling-hot
temperatures. The coffee was so terrible, it used to be a
common complaint among astronauts.

Vegetable garden: more than $145,000

The experiment was about more than salad. Astronauts are studying
the
effects of microgravity on plants. If we're going to ever
send humans to Mars, understanding how to grow veggies is going
to be very, very important.

At 16 pounds, it's $145,600 to $690,900, which is just slightly
more expensive than a salad in Manhattan.

The ashes of "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry: priceless?

Okay, so you didn't actually pay for this one, but it's so
perfect we had to include it.

The ashes of Roddenberry, his wife, Majel Barrett Roddenberry
(aka Lwaxana
Troi), and James Doonhan, the original Scotty, all
went to space as a secondary payload on a 2012 SpaceX resupply
mission. SpaceX partnered with private company Celestis, which
specializes on
sending ashes into space.

The ashes never made it all the way to the space station, either.
The capsule was jettisoned about 10 minutes into the flight, and
is still orbiting Earth.

If that sounds like the ideal funeral, be prepared to shell out:
Sending just one gram, or a third of an ounce, of ashes into
orbit runs $2,995. If you want to posthumously travel to deeper
space, you or your next-of-kin are looking at $12,500.

Does this sound ridiculously expensive?

NASA

By Earth standards, sure. But Margasahayam says it's worth it.

Experiments conducted on the space station have huge potential to
teach us about the human body and the future of space flight.
Space programs like NASA have led to huge leaves in technology
that we use every day here on Earth.

"NASA is the pinnacle of American ingenuity and engineering,"
Margasahayam said. He also points out that NASA's budget is
really very small compared to other departments.

As we've written before, too, entrepreneur Elon Musk (who owns
SpaceX) hopes to bring the cost of shipping objects to space to
less than $1,000 per pound.

In the end, shipping stuff to the ISS is crazy expensive. But it
also represents international collaboration, scientific
advancement, and innovation - and that's priceless.